Christmas Carols

[Bambi]

These might look familiar from an earlier post, but this is a very similar "next frame" to the previous picture. The original is above, followed by the ever-helpful Blue Channel so you can see what's under all those yellow swirls.

Please look this over carefully so I can finally put the finishing touches on it.

Bambi

[Mhayes]

Bambi, what a great job you have done on this one. Maybe it's just me, but the gentleman third from your left needs a little tweaking on his eyes and mouth. The other thing is that you may want to add the date stamp back in on the lower right hand. Small pics on a great restore!

Margie

[Hannie]

Margie's suggestions will be the icing on the cake.
Bambi, you have done another great impossible restore!

Kudos,

Hannie

[Pat]

Bambi you've done an outstanding job!  The only thing that could possibly improve it would be if you could fix it like you did your other one so that the people do not appear quite so cut out and placed onto the background. 

[Bambi]

Is this better? I worked on all the faces a little and the center woman's hair. I used an angled brush to add soft shadows on around the edges of the people to give them a little shape and blend them into the background better.

Pat, I never did fix flatness in the earlier picture. If this is better, I can go back and finish that one, too. 

Bambi

[Pat]

Hi Bambi, superb job  :up:

For those who may not have seen Glenna's tip in your earlier post the other picture I was referring to is in the following link where Glenna talks about Defringe:

http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,3307.msg29872.html#msg29872

"Bambi, a quick trick to get rid of the "cut out" look if you have your people on a separate layer is to select the layer, go under Layer - all the way to the bottom to Matting.  Click on Defringe, and you'll get a dialogue box that lets you enter a value.  Usually 1 px works, and the edge blends very well. Haven't used that one in a while and almost forgot it.  You can increase the value if you need to, but I don't think you will."

[Bambi]

In CS5 when you select something, the new Refine Edge menu includes a feature at the bottom called Decontaminate Color. You can adjust the range with a slider until you have the background color eliminated. Then you can put the selection on a New Layer by itself or a New Layer with Layer Mask. Last time I used New Layers with the selected piece only. This time I used New Layers with Layer Masks. I know it shouldn't make a difference, but I really think the pieces blend together better using the layer mask.

Bambi

[schen]

Bambi, another very difficult restoration that you have done a great job bring it back.  The picture was taken by a cheap point-and-shoot with a small flash.  The fringe of the shadow was quite sharp in the original.  The glasses of the second guy from the left also cast a shadow that was very conspicuous in the original.  One other thing, I would probably keep the date stamp.

Shujen

[Bambi]

I've done a few of these StrobelSiegenthaler photos and the only thing that bothers me is that darned flash shadow. From the quality of the photograph and the harsh flash, I think the family photographer used the Kodak mail-away box camera popular at weddings and big events around this time.

I meant to correct the man's glasses and the shadow, but I forgot. Also forgot the date stamp. Thanks for reminding me.

Before the picture looked like a flat cutout of the people against a flat cutout of the flash shadow against the background. I did some soft shading on the left and right of each person (slightly wider with a little more opacity on the left than the right. I smoothed the faces and smoothed the colors in the skintones, then copied the corrected Blue Channel and added it as another Luminosity Layer on each of the faces. The woman in the middle was brighter than the others, so I used Multiply on her Layer and adjusted the Opacity to match the others. That gave their faces and hair more detail.

There's always more than one light source in a room, so I added a light shadow down and to the right on the back walls. Then I used a small blur brush at 33% with the image at 400% and blended the shadow on the person with the shadows in the background. That nasty dark flash shadow always gives the subject a flat surreal effect. Do you think I've given the people some shape?

Thank y'all for all your help with this. I really want this to be as close to the picture they saw for years, framed on some special table of photographs. I never saw that original, but this is all they'll have to remember these people in this moment and I want it to be the way they remember it—or as close as anyone can get it. Your generosity is sooooooooooo welcome.

Bambi

[Tori803]

Great job, Bambi! I was wondering if a little noise might help the background to not look 'separated' from the people?


Noise by Tori803, on Flickr

[Bambi]

I added the date stamp, fixed the man's glasses in the flash shadow, added noise, added a little more soft shadow on the right side of the people to give them more shape, turned the ceiling lights on and brightened it just a little overall.

The flash shadow is what it is. I matched it to the shadow in the blue channel. It might be just a little softer on the edges, but harder edges made it look worse. Let me know what you think.

Bambi

[Mhayes]

Bambi, it looks great! You and Hannie both are going to start running the other way when you see photos like this, or you two could be the ones we give them to?  >:D

:up2:

Margie